The reason the US became... whatever it is now, is that too many Republicans thought 'the worst of us is preferable to the best of them'. Well, "Susan Collins vs a cheating chud with a SS tatoo" is possibly the closest we’ll ever get to a reversed situation. I would much rather have a Democrat than a Republican, but I would not pick *any* Democrat over *any* Republican; I've seen where that logic leads.
I understand why reasonnable people would disagree, of course, I'd only ask where you would draw the line if you do not draw it here.
If Platner's seat was the difference between having enough votes for removal or not, this would be air tight reasoning. But unless I'm reading the tea leaves wrong, that just ain't in the cards.
100% agree that he won’t be impeached (barring something even more remarkable than what we’ve already seen), but my concerns are 1) Appointments, and 2) As-yet-unknown legislation.
And let me add: If this was an executive office, my thinking would be very different.
You have assigned infinite importance to the democrats winning the senate. This is what people mean when they say Trump derangement syndrome. "Trump is infinitely bad" propagates like a prion through your political philosophy, assigning infinite value to various propositions, until the whole thing is mush. Sanity cannot survive such an idea.
And in case you don't believe me that infinity is the value that you have assigned, try adding or subtracting 1 from it, and see if the value changes at all.
I recently moved from Virginia to Florida, largely because I prefer the politics and governance of Florida over Virginia (specifically nova).
We just had a very successful governorship of Glenn youngkin, as well as a successful attorney generalship. The wreckage from the defund the police era got addressed as well as the politicization of the attorney generals office. The outgoing candidates had decent approval ratings.
But Virginia is a structurally dem state due to demographics, DOGE layoffs led to general wanting to lash out amongst NOVA workers (even though state politics had no impact), and the covid exception of nov 2021 was over. So dems won in a landslide.
The most interesting race was attorney general. The democratic candidate jay jones had publicly called his opponents children little nazies and said he was going to murder the children himself.
Now you would think this was disqualifying. But at the end of the day it cost him around 5% of the electorate (how far he Rand behind the gubernatorial candidate).
Keep in mind that “attorney general of the state of Virginia” is not even tied to standard legislative priorities. You don’t get like green energy tax credits or whatever from that election. Mostly you just want a competent guy who does his job and locks up the criminals, which his republican adversary had done a good job of doing.
So my conclusion from this episode is that 90% of the democratic electorate hates me and wants my children dead. This isn’t about policies or trade offs or utility calculations. They want me and my children dead.
The other 10% is persuadable. As long as the underlying demographics of an election remain within a five point swing I can count of moderate dems to stand up against kid murder. But Virginia had moved beyond that threshold so I became a refugee.
This is where I’m at. I actually think it’s better for the long term health of the Democratic Party that Platner not get elected. But I think it comes with some pretty serious short and medium term pain.
This does not really seem necessarily a black mark against Senator Collins: "Collins voted to convict Trump of impeachment the second time but not the first," Maybe it's just vaguely possible she thought the second impeachment was warranted but not the first. That would just be judgment, not simply knee jerk lock step voting.
Did you ever see that Mitchell and Webb skit (https://youtu.be/3ss-59fi4nM?si=LOaz5RKUgvhj3qzG), where they're talking about "the Apprentice", and how they pitch it so that viewers will watch it ironically, knowing they're smarter than the show. In that sketch Webb's character asks how the ironic viewers show up in the ratings, and Mitchell replies they show up the same as the idiots.
My point being, is that people who vote for Platner because, like you, they're holding their nose and tactically rallying against Trump, come out exactly the same as those who think, "hey, it's so cool that we can finally get Nazi tattoos"! Or to put it another way, would you be happy having a random Platner voter round to your house, talking to your neighbours about how you two agree on so much?
I would obviously prefer to have more nose holders. I agree with Jeff that things would be better if more people could say, "This is my vote and I feel bad about it." It would be good for Trump voters to have to hold their nose, too, rather than wallow in the slop.
The problem, as you point out, is that the only unmistakable lever we have is the vote, and a hold-nose vote is indistinguishable from an enthusiastic vote. But, on the level of discussion and writing, I think there's still room to explain to that Platner voter who came round why you don't like Platner.
The problem with this, is it also goes the other way. Collins is, by all accounts, pretty moderate. So you're showing Republicans that there is no advantage in being a moderate. Candidate "down with mein kampf" still beats you, even if you think abortion should not be banned, are for sensible gun control, or whatever other position that most voters can get behind. So you incentivise shitty, partisan candidates all across the board.
These days she's only moderate in her mind. That's not nothing, but it ain't much. (Edit: I'm overstating here, but there's a whole lot more terribleness she lets through than she pushes against. That Trump provides lots of balls to swing at is not necessarily a point in her favor.)
I'd argue we have already incentivized shitty candidates across the board. Collins isn't more shitty than most of the compliant GOP Congress, but she's an incumbent. We are incentivizing Platner and Paxton right now. What I'd like is for people to feel bad about it. Feeling bad about it isn't nothing. Bad feelings about the DoJ settlement slush fund seems to be grinding its gears. Bad feelings about a Platner would encourage him to be sane. Bad feelings about Collins would encourage her to diversify her voting.
I think this misses a larger problem that sits underneath the Platner/Paxton comparison.
For the last decade, Democrats have framed virtually every election as a referendum on Trump and “Trumpism.” Once that becomes the organizing principle of politics, lesser‑of‑two‑evils voting stops being an exception and becomes the default operating system. Every compromise gets justified by the same move: yes, our candidate has serious flaws, but the alternative is Trump or someone aligned with Trump.
At the same time, Democrats have claimed the role of moral referee in American politics — the party of norms, character, decency, and rule of law.
If that’s your brand, then your standards can’t endlessly flex around perceived emergencies. At some point voters notice that “character matters” keeps becoming “character matters, except when defeating Trump is at stake.”
That doesn’t mean Republicans are more principled. It means the credibility cost lands differently. Trump has essentially told the same story for a decade: strength and America First. People may like it or hate it, but they don’t experience it as a constantly recalibrated moral framework.
So when you ask whether you’re doing a version of the Paxton calculation, I think the more interesting question is whether the anti‑Trump framework itself has made that calculation inevitable. Once every race is treated as an existential referendum, how could standards do anything but bend?
And if they keep bending, why should anyone believe they’re standards rather than tools?
Trump and loyality to him have been the defining feature of the republican party. Even moderate dissentions have killed senior republicans like Romney, Ryan and Pence.
Given that, it's fair to vote against republicans if "Support Trump" is their primary policy goal.
To be fair, I think politics always is a choice of the lesser of two evils at some level. I wish character and virtue played a larger role but the truth is American's elect scumbags all the time. If we had the internet during Kennedy, Truman and so many other people, we'd find things that would be disqualifying. I'm not saying there shouldn't be moral standards but at some level, you actually do need to seperate the politician from their personal life and focus only on their particularly policies as well as the consequences of the supposed more "moral person" getting in when that person will when push comes to shove take voters that will be harmful. There is a Democratic and Republican asymmetry that when Democrats apply moral tests we get Al Franken type situations and end up getting nothing in return, while Republicans can elect Trump twice and Paxton will likely win and despite his person moral problems, abuse office, corruption and getting impeached by his own party) beat a long-time highly conservative Republican in Coryn by thirty points. We are not selecting a priest and we should apply a better test of what is actually qualifying and disqualifying beyond personal issues but rather what they've done in terms of public service. Planter as a solider probably didn't stand out in either good or bad but Paxton is hated by his own party for his corruption. I don't think Planter and Paxton can be put in the same camp.
I don’t actually disagree with the basic “lesser of two evils” point. I’m not shocked that politics attracts scumbags or that voters end up making ugly tradeoffs. My issue is narrower and more specific. I can live with hypocrisy when it comes with some self‑awareness: “yeah, our guy is awful, we’re holding our nose because we think the alternative is worse.”
What I can’t live with is hypocrisy turned into a marketing campaign. When a faction brands itself as the party of moral dominance, character, norms, and rule of law, then constantly flexes those standards in the name of defeating the existential enemy, it’s not just “everyone’s a scumbag” anymore. It’s using moral language to fool low‑information people into thinking they’re voting for the good guys, when what’s actually happening is the same power calculus with better PR. That will never be the lesser of two evils in my mind.
Oh, I agree here. But for better or worse politics is about power and how wields it and how. Politics to be is an inherent "necessary evil". Morality is better judged by the how behaved entirely public offices, not their personal or private life. You can never fully separate a politicians personal and public life but if we are to have a more sane politics, we may actually have to lower our personal character standards and care a lot more about public policy positions than anything they do outside of politics. One thing, I firmly believe, is that our current technology hasn't changed much so much as it revealed what was always there but people were not aware of. In today's world, many of the people who we think of as moral paragons, when put under the 24/7 world of the internet would not be admired. I think everyone fails the moral test on a personal level, so the only thing that matters are their particular policy positions. Admittedly, I'm a bit of technocrat and I think policy actually needs separated from politics. I'm a bit black pilled here, because I believe as long as politics is fought in the realm of culture and morality, it will only get worse and more insane. The system itself selects for these types of people, and democracies tend to fail because they reward people who run for office and the people who run for office are the least equipped to wield power responsibly. I'm a bit of Platonist here and I've joked the person who should be in the office is one would like it the least and has dragged to serve public office.
I think the first step is everyone getting back into the same shared reality and conversations like these are the only way that happens. Great chatting with you!
I am impressed with your willingness to address this question and focus on your own bias. That kind of openness and honesty is a lot of what I find attractive about your commentary. Ultimately, it isn't easy getting past bias, being more right leaning than you are, I come down on the other side issue - neither of us should ignore how our bias affects our perspective
It's typical how McLaughlin claims the Democrats want to "shatter the American constitutional system" while ignoring the fact Trump is trying to do just that. Oh, I fogot: Trump is trying to restore American values. Whatever. The projection syndrome by Republicans is alive and well.....
1. My personal rule is that I don't vote for bad people. No one could convince me to vote for Trump and no one would be able to convince me to vote for either Paxton or Platner. Some people are just unfit for office.
2. The bad person's opponent still has to earn my vote because otherwise I'll write someone in or stay home. If your opponent really is a creep, you the candidate have to show that you understand it too - by making a serious effort to reach across the aisle. Collins has done a better job of that than Talarico has. Voting to remove a president of your own party > being seen eating barbecue
For example, I (would like to) think Dan McLaughlin would be saying something different if Paxton's opponent were someone like Kyrsten Sinema instead of Talarico. Talarico should be willing to pledge to oppose efforts to change the Supreme Court.
Talarico does oppose packing the Supreme Court, and actually: So does Platner. This is why I think it won’t happen: It’s something Democrats talk about to fire up their base but they back down the second their words matter because the plan is extremely unpopular.
I think you missed the most important symmetry: people aren’t really voting for Paxton, they’re voting generic Trump support. And they aren’t voting for Comrade Totenkopf, they’re voting generic Trump opposition. This is just continuing the civic corruption of the Trump era.
There’s no way to win a race to the bottom. You just gotta decide to stop running.
(PS: Love the Platner articles. They are 99.9% convincing.)
The failing behind generic Trump support/opposition is the failure of just about anyone in Congress to establish that a vote for them could possibly be anything else. We need to incentivize Congress to do their own jobs, but I don't know how to do that in a system where we have to vote someone in every two years. Currently, I'm inclined to think that not letting Platner in is a good step, but that's rewarding Collins's nigh-party line Trump support. There's just no clear way to incentivize Congress to legislate.
This piece is better than Jeff's first piece on Platner. Inadvertently, he makes a better case for Collins: the completely unhinged characterizations of Collins from the left. They are a good snapshot into the mind of Platner and his ilk.
Technically, convict on the articles of impeachment. Not sure what you mean by "just 'impeach'" -- impeaching is what the House of Representatives does, not the Senate.
"Convict ... of impeachment" is my real objection.
"...shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." So, one is not convicted of impeachment, which is not a crime, but impeached on the grounds of some (alleged) crime etc..
But you are right that it was conviction and not impeachment that was relevant to Collins. It's admittedly awkward to phrase "on the articles of impeachment", but... it's an awkward process.
A calm, articulate, hate and hyperbole-free 60 second campaign ad sans idiocy or even a good conspiracy theory - and with fully zipped trousers to boot?!
Are you actually entertaining the notion that *this* guy might somehow be qualified for a seat in the U.S. Senate and that the good people of Maine should think about voting for *him* rather than that other nut?
Are *you* nuts?
That's the kind of hopium-smoking self-delusional wishcasting that could be the very death of 21st century American politics as we know it if somehow it ever caught on to any degree and started to spread, and which would, among countless other malign consequences, likely put a whole lot of otherwise good and decent comedians out of work for lack of material.
Get a grip, Jeff. That's just the kind of voting against one's own self-interest that got us all here in the first place.
This one has a little bit more salience than usual when the charge gets bandied about--he's cited the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic Gospels that the historic church has recognized as spurious, to support some of his more progressive positions.
Now, this is still a bit hypocritical of McLaughlin if he, say, would vote for a Mormon Republican (note: I like Mormons, but the origins of the Book of Mormon are...dubious at best), but it's not quite the usual "you disagree with me about how to interpret the Bible."
If it weren't for the fact that Collins winning could keep the GOP in control of the Senate, I might vote for her. But it's very likely that control of the Senate could come down to a single seat and Platner, bad as he is, isn't bad enough to allow the Senate to stay in GOP hands.
FWIW, I'd vote for Collins if I could.
The reason the US became... whatever it is now, is that too many Republicans thought 'the worst of us is preferable to the best of them'. Well, "Susan Collins vs a cheating chud with a SS tatoo" is possibly the closest we’ll ever get to a reversed situation. I would much rather have a Democrat than a Republican, but I would not pick *any* Democrat over *any* Republican; I've seen where that logic leads.
I understand why reasonnable people would disagree, of course, I'd only ask where you would draw the line if you do not draw it here.
If we had a different president or if I thought Democrats could win the Senate without Maine, I’d probably reach a different conclusion.
If Platner's seat was the difference between having enough votes for removal or not, this would be air tight reasoning. But unless I'm reading the tea leaves wrong, that just ain't in the cards.
100% agree that he won’t be impeached (barring something even more remarkable than what we’ve already seen), but my concerns are 1) Appointments, and 2) As-yet-unknown legislation.
And let me add: If this was an executive office, my thinking would be very different.
The idea of Thomas' empty SCOTUS seat going to Don Jr. sometime between now and '28 is some cold water on my airy idealism.....
You have assigned infinite importance to the democrats winning the senate. This is what people mean when they say Trump derangement syndrome. "Trump is infinitely bad" propagates like a prion through your political philosophy, assigning infinite value to various propositions, until the whole thing is mush. Sanity cannot survive such an idea.
And in case you don't believe me that infinity is the value that you have assigned, try adding or subtracting 1 from it, and see if the value changes at all.
I recently moved from Virginia to Florida, largely because I prefer the politics and governance of Florida over Virginia (specifically nova).
We just had a very successful governorship of Glenn youngkin, as well as a successful attorney generalship. The wreckage from the defund the police era got addressed as well as the politicization of the attorney generals office. The outgoing candidates had decent approval ratings.
But Virginia is a structurally dem state due to demographics, DOGE layoffs led to general wanting to lash out amongst NOVA workers (even though state politics had no impact), and the covid exception of nov 2021 was over. So dems won in a landslide.
The most interesting race was attorney general. The democratic candidate jay jones had publicly called his opponents children little nazies and said he was going to murder the children himself.
Now you would think this was disqualifying. But at the end of the day it cost him around 5% of the electorate (how far he Rand behind the gubernatorial candidate).
Keep in mind that “attorney general of the state of Virginia” is not even tied to standard legislative priorities. You don’t get like green energy tax credits or whatever from that election. Mostly you just want a competent guy who does his job and locks up the criminals, which his republican adversary had done a good job of doing.
So my conclusion from this episode is that 90% of the democratic electorate hates me and wants my children dead. This isn’t about policies or trade offs or utility calculations. They want me and my children dead.
The other 10% is persuadable. As long as the underlying demographics of an election remain within a five point swing I can count of moderate dems to stand up against kid murder. But Virginia had moved beyond that threshold so I became a refugee.
This is where I’m at. I actually think it’s better for the long term health of the Democratic Party that Platner not get elected. But I think it comes with some pretty serious short and medium term pain.
This does not really seem necessarily a black mark against Senator Collins: "Collins voted to convict Trump of impeachment the second time but not the first," Maybe it's just vaguely possible she thought the second impeachment was warranted but not the first. That would just be judgment, not simply knee jerk lock step voting.
Yes that was her judgement, I just strongly disagree. I’m accusing her of poor judgement there, not fealty.
I agree, but it is a black mark that it's almost the only thing you could say about her voting recording against Trump.
She is not the worst of the GOP Congress by a long shot, but the bar there is extremely low.
Did you ever see that Mitchell and Webb skit (https://youtu.be/3ss-59fi4nM?si=LOaz5RKUgvhj3qzG), where they're talking about "the Apprentice", and how they pitch it so that viewers will watch it ironically, knowing they're smarter than the show. In that sketch Webb's character asks how the ironic viewers show up in the ratings, and Mitchell replies they show up the same as the idiots.
My point being, is that people who vote for Platner because, like you, they're holding their nose and tactically rallying against Trump, come out exactly the same as those who think, "hey, it's so cool that we can finally get Nazi tattoos"! Or to put it another way, would you be happy having a random Platner voter round to your house, talking to your neighbours about how you two agree on so much?
Very funny sketch -- thanks for the link!
I would obviously prefer to have more nose holders. I agree with Jeff that things would be better if more people could say, "This is my vote and I feel bad about it." It would be good for Trump voters to have to hold their nose, too, rather than wallow in the slop.
The problem, as you point out, is that the only unmistakable lever we have is the vote, and a hold-nose vote is indistinguishable from an enthusiastic vote. But, on the level of discussion and writing, I think there's still room to explain to that Platner voter who came round why you don't like Platner.
The problem with this, is it also goes the other way. Collins is, by all accounts, pretty moderate. So you're showing Republicans that there is no advantage in being a moderate. Candidate "down with mein kampf" still beats you, even if you think abortion should not be banned, are for sensible gun control, or whatever other position that most voters can get behind. So you incentivise shitty, partisan candidates all across the board.
These days she's only moderate in her mind. That's not nothing, but it ain't much. (Edit: I'm overstating here, but there's a whole lot more terribleness she lets through than she pushes against. That Trump provides lots of balls to swing at is not necessarily a point in her favor.)
I'd argue we have already incentivized shitty candidates across the board. Collins isn't more shitty than most of the compliant GOP Congress, but she's an incumbent. We are incentivizing Platner and Paxton right now. What I'd like is for people to feel bad about it. Feeling bad about it isn't nothing. Bad feelings about the DoJ settlement slush fund seems to be grinding its gears. Bad feelings about a Platner would encourage him to be sane. Bad feelings about Collins would encourage her to diversify her voting.
How is this guy the best Maine can do ?
Shaun: Thanks for the link!
I think this misses a larger problem that sits underneath the Platner/Paxton comparison.
For the last decade, Democrats have framed virtually every election as a referendum on Trump and “Trumpism.” Once that becomes the organizing principle of politics, lesser‑of‑two‑evils voting stops being an exception and becomes the default operating system. Every compromise gets justified by the same move: yes, our candidate has serious flaws, but the alternative is Trump or someone aligned with Trump.
At the same time, Democrats have claimed the role of moral referee in American politics — the party of norms, character, decency, and rule of law.
If that’s your brand, then your standards can’t endlessly flex around perceived emergencies. At some point voters notice that “character matters” keeps becoming “character matters, except when defeating Trump is at stake.”
That doesn’t mean Republicans are more principled. It means the credibility cost lands differently. Trump has essentially told the same story for a decade: strength and America First. People may like it or hate it, but they don’t experience it as a constantly recalibrated moral framework.
So when you ask whether you’re doing a version of the Paxton calculation, I think the more interesting question is whether the anti‑Trump framework itself has made that calculation inevitable. Once every race is treated as an existential referendum, how could standards do anything but bend?
And if they keep bending, why should anyone believe they’re standards rather than tools?
Trump and loyality to him have been the defining feature of the republican party. Even moderate dissentions have killed senior republicans like Romney, Ryan and Pence.
Given that, it's fair to vote against republicans if "Support Trump" is their primary policy goal.
To be fair, I think politics always is a choice of the lesser of two evils at some level. I wish character and virtue played a larger role but the truth is American's elect scumbags all the time. If we had the internet during Kennedy, Truman and so many other people, we'd find things that would be disqualifying. I'm not saying there shouldn't be moral standards but at some level, you actually do need to seperate the politician from their personal life and focus only on their particularly policies as well as the consequences of the supposed more "moral person" getting in when that person will when push comes to shove take voters that will be harmful. There is a Democratic and Republican asymmetry that when Democrats apply moral tests we get Al Franken type situations and end up getting nothing in return, while Republicans can elect Trump twice and Paxton will likely win and despite his person moral problems, abuse office, corruption and getting impeached by his own party) beat a long-time highly conservative Republican in Coryn by thirty points. We are not selecting a priest and we should apply a better test of what is actually qualifying and disqualifying beyond personal issues but rather what they've done in terms of public service. Planter as a solider probably didn't stand out in either good or bad but Paxton is hated by his own party for his corruption. I don't think Planter and Paxton can be put in the same camp.
I don’t actually disagree with the basic “lesser of two evils” point. I’m not shocked that politics attracts scumbags or that voters end up making ugly tradeoffs. My issue is narrower and more specific. I can live with hypocrisy when it comes with some self‑awareness: “yeah, our guy is awful, we’re holding our nose because we think the alternative is worse.”
What I can’t live with is hypocrisy turned into a marketing campaign. When a faction brands itself as the party of moral dominance, character, norms, and rule of law, then constantly flexes those standards in the name of defeating the existential enemy, it’s not just “everyone’s a scumbag” anymore. It’s using moral language to fool low‑information people into thinking they’re voting for the good guys, when what’s actually happening is the same power calculus with better PR. That will never be the lesser of two evils in my mind.
Oh, I agree here. But for better or worse politics is about power and how wields it and how. Politics to be is an inherent "necessary evil". Morality is better judged by the how behaved entirely public offices, not their personal or private life. You can never fully separate a politicians personal and public life but if we are to have a more sane politics, we may actually have to lower our personal character standards and care a lot more about public policy positions than anything they do outside of politics. One thing, I firmly believe, is that our current technology hasn't changed much so much as it revealed what was always there but people were not aware of. In today's world, many of the people who we think of as moral paragons, when put under the 24/7 world of the internet would not be admired. I think everyone fails the moral test on a personal level, so the only thing that matters are their particular policy positions. Admittedly, I'm a bit of technocrat and I think policy actually needs separated from politics. I'm a bit black pilled here, because I believe as long as politics is fought in the realm of culture and morality, it will only get worse and more insane. The system itself selects for these types of people, and democracies tend to fail because they reward people who run for office and the people who run for office are the least equipped to wield power responsibly. I'm a bit of Platonist here and I've joked the person who should be in the office is one would like it the least and has dragged to serve public office.
I think the first step is everyone getting back into the same shared reality and conversations like these are the only way that happens. Great chatting with you!
I am impressed with your willingness to address this question and focus on your own bias. That kind of openness and honesty is a lot of what I find attractive about your commentary. Ultimately, it isn't easy getting past bias, being more right leaning than you are, I come down on the other side issue - neither of us should ignore how our bias affects our perspective
This substack became a thesis on moral relativism so gradually I didn't even notice!
Good point Jeff: Gov. Janet Mills is still on the ballot! Vote for her Democrats!
It's typical how McLaughlin claims the Democrats want to "shatter the American constitutional system" while ignoring the fact Trump is trying to do just that. Oh, I fogot: Trump is trying to restore American values. Whatever. The projection syndrome by Republicans is alive and well.....
1. My personal rule is that I don't vote for bad people. No one could convince me to vote for Trump and no one would be able to convince me to vote for either Paxton or Platner. Some people are just unfit for office.
2. The bad person's opponent still has to earn my vote because otherwise I'll write someone in or stay home. If your opponent really is a creep, you the candidate have to show that you understand it too - by making a serious effort to reach across the aisle. Collins has done a better job of that than Talarico has. Voting to remove a president of your own party > being seen eating barbecue
For example, I (would like to) think Dan McLaughlin would be saying something different if Paxton's opponent were someone like Kyrsten Sinema instead of Talarico. Talarico should be willing to pledge to oppose efforts to change the Supreme Court.
Talarico does oppose packing the Supreme Court, and actually: So does Platner. This is why I think it won’t happen: It’s something Democrats talk about to fire up their base but they back down the second their words matter because the plan is extremely unpopular.
Dan McLaughlin would not, under any circumstances, say anything different regardless of who the Democrat was. I feel quite certain of that.
He thinks that the worst Republican is still better than the best Democrat.
I think you missed the most important symmetry: people aren’t really voting for Paxton, they’re voting generic Trump support. And they aren’t voting for Comrade Totenkopf, they’re voting generic Trump opposition. This is just continuing the civic corruption of the Trump era.
There’s no way to win a race to the bottom. You just gotta decide to stop running.
(PS: Love the Platner articles. They are 99.9% convincing.)
The failing behind generic Trump support/opposition is the failure of just about anyone in Congress to establish that a vote for them could possibly be anything else. We need to incentivize Congress to do their own jobs, but I don't know how to do that in a system where we have to vote someone in every two years. Currently, I'm inclined to think that not letting Platner in is a good step, but that's rewarding Collins's nigh-party line Trump support. There's just no clear way to incentivize Congress to legislate.
Can’t solve all the problems at once. But it would be great if one party learned not to keep giving us unpalatable gargoyles.
This piece is better than Jeff's first piece on Platner. Inadvertently, he makes a better case for Collins: the completely unhinged characterizations of Collins from the left. They are a good snapshot into the mind of Platner and his ilk.
"convict Trump of impeachment"
Just "impeach", buddy
Technically, convict on the articles of impeachment. Not sure what you mean by "just 'impeach'" -- impeaching is what the House of Representatives does, not the Senate.
"Convict ... of impeachment" is my real objection.
"...shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." So, one is not convicted of impeachment, which is not a crime, but impeached on the grounds of some (alleged) crime etc..
But you are right that it was conviction and not impeachment that was relevant to Collins. It's admittedly awkward to phrase "on the articles of impeachment", but... it's an awkward process.
RE: this guy (David Costello) is running
A calm, articulate, hate and hyperbole-free 60 second campaign ad sans idiocy or even a good conspiracy theory - and with fully zipped trousers to boot?!
Are you actually entertaining the notion that *this* guy might somehow be qualified for a seat in the U.S. Senate and that the good people of Maine should think about voting for *him* rather than that other nut?
Are *you* nuts?
That's the kind of hopium-smoking self-delusional wishcasting that could be the very death of 21st century American politics as we know it if somehow it ever caught on to any degree and started to spread, and which would, among countless other malign consequences, likely put a whole lot of otherwise good and decent comedians out of work for lack of material.
Get a grip, Jeff. That's just the kind of voting against one's own self-interest that got us all here in the first place.
That's faze not phase.
Thanks — fixed!
Thank you!
RE: Talarico being a heretic
This one has a little bit more salience than usual when the charge gets bandied about--he's cited the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Gnostic Gospels that the historic church has recognized as spurious, to support some of his more progressive positions.
Now, this is still a bit hypocritical of McLaughlin if he, say, would vote for a Mormon Republican (note: I like Mormons, but the origins of the Book of Mormon are...dubious at best), but it's not quite the usual "you disagree with me about how to interpret the Bible."
If it weren't for the fact that Collins winning could keep the GOP in control of the Senate, I might vote for her. But it's very likely that control of the Senate could come down to a single seat and Platner, bad as he is, isn't bad enough to allow the Senate to stay in GOP hands.